The applicants for the return of Portuguese nationality to Guinean ex-combatants in the overseas war will request an audience with the President of the Republic. The aim is to bring Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa into this long-standing claim of veterans of the armed forces who fought in the war and saw their nationality revoked in June 1975 after independence.
As one of the signatories and initiators of the petition, Rafael Pinto Borges, president of Nova Portugalidade, a nationalist association, told DN: “There is a realization that only Parliament can solve this situation, but we want the public support of the President of the Republic for this matter”.
The petition already has more than 1,600 signatures and the collection process has already taken place in Guinea-Bissau, where about 5,000 ex-combatants and their families have signed it.
In the text of the petition – accusing Portugal of “not being grateful” for the service or for the blood they shed – they recall: “We Guinean veterans of the Portuguese armed forces saw comrades and friends, parents and brothers fall for Portugal. Portuguese; we were full citizens since 1961. At the time of all decisions, when Portugal needed us, we were at its disposal. We are what is left of those nearly 20,000 children of Guinea who did not refuse what was an unassailable civic duty for us. Because we were born Portuguese, we serve Portugal as Portugal asked us to serve it. That was the highest honor.”
These petitioners, who are represented by Amadu Jao, President of the Association of Former Fighters of the Armed Forces of Guinea-Bissau, allege that the 1974 Algiers agreement, assuming responsibility for their fate and rights, was thwarted by decree-law of 1975, drafted by the socialist António Almeida Santos, in which their Portuguese citizenship was revoked.
“Never before has a state deprived such a large proportion of its citizens of the right to citizenship by invoking a strict racial criterion – that is, a strictly racist criterion. Of the approximately twenty-five million Portuguese we were in 1974, 60% were declared non-Portuguese suddenly, involuntarily and illegally – illegally because in clear violation of international law, the United Nations Charter and the constitutional order before or after 1976,” they write.
They also condemn the suffering of the years that followed, saying they were considered “traitors” by the Guinean authorities after undergoing “exile, persecution and death”.
“Between 700 and 5000 Guinean veterans of the Portuguese army were shot, many with their families. Lisbon remained silent when in Cumeré, in Farim, in Mansoa, in Bafatá or in Bissau, our comrades, our husbands, our parents. Many of us fled to Senegal, where we grew crops for years.” The ex-combatants believe that “Never before has Portugal abandoned its people so completely”, but assure that 46 years later they are not looking for a reckoning. They only claim nationality.
“Abandoned Warriors”
In a recent article in the DN, Viriato Soromenho-Marques argued that while the subject is broad, “it would be unacceptable if this claim were not met.” The university professor states that the “young Portuguese democracy”, which emerged from April 1974, “is not exempt from responsibilities in the case of former Guinean fighters”. In the Algiers Agreement of 26 August 1974, Portugal obtained from the PAIGC a promise that its native Guinean army would be respected.”
But, says Viriato Soromenho-Marques, “with vengeful ferocity, the PAIGC began shooting the first Guinean FAP commanders in the fall of 1974.”
And he concludes his op-ed: “History is not a court, nor is it for the building of souls. Citizens of the land to which they have given their blood and entrusted their lives.”
Source: DN
